NEW YORK — The options on the motionpicture marquee this weekend consistedof Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, a movie about Donald Trump, a “Saturday Night Live” origin story and even Pharrell Williams as a Lego. In the end, all were trounced by an ax-wielding clown.
“Terrifier 3,” a gory, low-budget slasher from the little supplier Cineverse, topped the weekend box workplace with $18.3 million, according to approximates Sunday. The movie, a followup to 2022’s “Terrifier 2” ($15 million aroundtheworld in ticket sales), brings back the homicidal Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) and lets him loose, under the guise of Santa, at a Christmas celebration.
That “Terrifier 3” might especially overperform expectations and leapfrog both significant studios and awards hopefuls was just possible due to the catastrophe of “Joker: Folie à Deux.” After Todd Phillips’ “Joker” followup, starring Phoenix and Lady Gaga, got off to a much-diminished start last weekend (and a “D” CinemaScore from audiences), the Warner Bros. release fell a shocking 81% in its 2nd weekend, taking in simply $7.1 million.
For a superhero movie, such a drop has little precedent. Disappointments like “The Marvels,” “The Flash” and “Shazam Fury of the Gods” all handled muchbetter 2nd weekends. Such a mass rejection by audiences and critics is especially uncommonly for a follow-up to a huge hit like 2019’s “Joker.” That movie, likewise from Phillips and Phoenix, earned more than $1 billion aroundtheworld versus a $60 million budgetplan.
The followup was moreexpensive, costing about $200 million to make. That indicates “Joker: Folie à Deux” is headed for specific box-office catastrophe. Globally, it’s gathered $165.3 million in ticket sales.
“This is an outlier of a weekend if ever there was one,” stated Paul Dergarabedian, senior media expert for Comscore. “If you had asked anybody a month ago or even a week ago: Would ‘Terrifier 3’ be the number one motionpicture among all these major-studio movies and awards competitors? To have a motionpicture like this come along simply reveals you that the audience is the supreme arbiter of what wins at the box workplace.”
The “Joker” slide permitted “The Wild Robot,” the well-known Universal Pictures and DreamWorks animated motionpicture, to take 2nd location in its 3rd weekend with $13.4 million. Strong evaluates for Chris Sanders’ adjustment of Peter Brown’s book have led the motionpicture, with Lupita Nyong’o voicing the robotic leadcharacter, to $83.7 million locally and $148 million worldwide.
The young Donald Trump movie “The Apprentice,” dispersed by Briarcliff Entertainment in 1,740 theaters, opened in a far-off 10th location, handling a paltry $1.6 million in ticket sales. While expectations weren’t much greater, audiences still revealed little interest for an election-year origin story of the Republican candidate.
If headings equated to ticket sales, Ali Abbasi’s movie may haveactually done muchbetter. “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan as Trump under the